University of Northampton student to spend summer researching antibiotic resistance

Tuesday 31 May 2016

The University of Northampton’s Biosciences Research Group has secured £2,500 funding from the Society for Applied Microbiology, which will fund a student to undertake research into antibiotic resistance.

Third year Human Biosciences student, Adam Gregory, will undertake the research project over the summer. “I was quite excited to find I had been selected for this project,” he explained. “Antibiotic resistance has been a keen area of interest for myself, and a common theme throughout my studies at the University. I hope that we are able to find some interesting results and generate some research beneficial to the scientific community.

“I am extremely excited to be putting the skills I have learned at university into practice and ultimately using the process to develop my future career prospects. Thank you to the staff, the society and the University for the opportunity. ”

Dr Gemma Marsden (Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biosciences) and Dr Jodie Score (Researcher) explained: “Antibiotic resistance is a really hot topic at the moment, especially in light of the final O’Neill report which indicates that deaths due to infection from antibiotic resistant microbes will reach 10 million cases annually by 2050, when antibiotic resistance will cause more death than cancer. Therefore, we are delighted to receive this funding which will allow us to develop novel methods in the laboratory to identify potential new reservoirs of disease by tracking antibiotic resistance markers as they enter the food chain.”

Dr Marsden’s recent blog, ‘Are we really over-using antibiotics; what is all the fuss about?’, is online here.